Updated below, 12:51 p.m. | A comprehensive and sobering Associated Press story by Dina Cappiello provides a valuable update on how United States policies promoting exports of coal are undercutting domestic efforts to restrict emissions of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas released when fossil fuels are burned.

This is hardly a surprise given past reporting on this issue, and a long history of such seemingly conflicting policies. Earlier this year, I wrote about how today’s coal exports echo the boom in tobacco exports after the United States cracked down on that industry and smoking in the Clinton years. As I wrote, “[I]f we can’t get it right with tobacco, where there’s no benefit to weigh against the toll in lives and costs, how can we get it right with fossil fuels, where the real-time benefits of affordable energy seem always to trump the long-term risks from climate change?”

Consider that question as you read the A.P. piece, which is datelined Newport News, Va., and begins this way:

Coal from Appalachia rumbles into this port city, 150 railroad cars at a time, bound for the belly of the massive cargo ship Prime Lily. The ship soon sets sail for South America, its 80,000 tons of coal destined for power plants and factories, an export of American energy — and pollution.

In the U.S., this coal and the carbon dioxide it will eventually release into the atmosphere are some of the unwanted leftovers of an America going greener. With the country moving to cleaner natural gas, the Obama administration wants to reduce power plant pollution to make good on its promise to the world to cut emissions.

Yet the estimated 228,800 tons of carbon dioxide contained in the coal aboard the Prime Lily equals the annual emissions of a small American power plant. It’s leaving this nation’s shores, but not the planet.

Please read the entire story here. There’s much more, including on-the-ground reporting from the 750-megawatt Trianel power plant in Luenena, Germany, which only burns imported coal (Germany is closing down its coal mines).

All of this reflects the reality that coal will be part of the world’s energy mix for another generation or more. Europe is even considering incentives for boosting its exports of coal-plant technology, as the website EurActive recently reported:

European makers of coal-fired power plants could get financial help to export the equipment, according to a Commission policy paper, flying in the face of environmental opposition to any form of subsidy for coal.

Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel, emitting around twice as much carbon dioxide as gas when used to generate power.

As a result, the European Union is phasing out subsidies for domestic coal plants by 2018 in line with its efforts to take a global lead in the fight against climate change.

But a paper prepared by officials from the European Commission trade department says export credits, or preferential loans to help cover exports costs, should be continued for the most modern coal plant technology.

“It has to be recognized that at a global level, coal as an important source of energy production is not going to disappear immediately,” says the paper circulated among representatives of E.U. member states.

“The E.U. delegation would consider it logical to try to see how the O.E.C.D. export credit community can create incentives to ensure that this continued use of coal as an energy source is at least done in the most climate-friendly way possible,” it said, referring to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

What's Next

About

By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to pass nine billion. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. Dot Earth was created by Andrew Revkin in October 2007 -- in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship -- to explore ways to balance human needs and the planet's limits.